


Between Us (before)

by Lokisgame



Series: To have and to hold [14]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s04e14 Memento Mori, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 08:20:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10240124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lokisgame/pseuds/Lokisgame
Summary: There will be a time when she will need this.Mulder ponders the past, the future and contents of a certain vial.





	

A small metal container rested in the middle of the table. Bright green LED light indicated all systems were working properly, protecting it's contents from the outside world. Safe. For better or worse, the contents of the container was finally safe. Mulder kept his eyes fixed on the green point, it didn't flash, it didn't fade. Battery powered measuring systems were the vulnerable part of the device, the cooling agent passively maintained required temperature for a time sufficient for safe transport and temporary storage. It wasn't meant to be kept like that indefinitely, but for now it was the best and safest conditions he could provide.  
Provide. Safe. Environment. For it's content. This was his brain's way of wrapping his feelings in her words. Scientific, professional, almost detached. His heart whispered the truth anyway, _take care of her unborn children, provide a safe home for them. For her. Father._  
His fingers inched closer to the smooth chrome surface, small, round like most portable pressure equipment. He wasn't a religous man, but the intimacy of the situation made him feel humbled. It didn't feel worng, not in his heart. On the contrary, it felt like he did something right for once in his life. He saved them, and he had a pretty good idea from what. The mystery was "what for". 

During investigation of the inbreeding Peacock family she was rattled by the fact of a baby thrown out and buried alive, by the atrocity of such action. It was a reasonable and natural human reaction, but it was also the first time he thought about her as a mother. That night when she went to bed, and left him alone with his thoughts and a chair pushed under the door handle he considered her words. He kept her wrapped up in his sad little world, pulling her away from a life she would otherwise have. Potentially, a husband, family, a kid, maybe two.  
Naturally she made her own choices, no one said that family was what she wanted or felt she was sacrificing at that moment. He valued her input and investigative skills too much and his work only benefited from it. The truth was, that as they worked together, he never stoped to think about her personal life. And really, why would he, work was all he was interested in. But what if she wanted such things. Would she come to the office one day and tell him she was pregnant and getting married. The thought made a shiver run down his spine and he quickly dismissed it, as something she wouldn't do without consideration for all it's ramifications, and he'd probably notice anyway. 

Leonard Betts case and then Podovkin proved that she was reaching a point where their work, was no longer enough for her. She wanted change, he thought that maybe it was the moment, when she would take a step back. It was a tough time for the both of them. He took the time off to think things through, and hoped that some time alone will help her sort out her feelings before he came back and they could talk about it. He was driving alone and with each mile left behind he was ready to do more to keep her with the X-files, he couldn't imagine it without her anymore. He was ready to pull his head out of his ass and do anything to make it work. In the mean time she almost died, he almost lost her. Their perspectives changed. 

Back then neither of them had suspected that the possibility child of her own was already of the table. Neither of them wanted to believe that she will share the fate of other women who were abducted, rendered barren, and left to die from a mysterious untreatable cancer. He should'ev known they weren't so lucky, for her to be the sole exception to the rule. As if fate would ever cut them any slack.

Scully was dying, the mystery of her infertility was revealed, and this is how he came to sit here. Staring at his own distorted reflection in the polished surface of the device, as she was home, alone, suffering in silence from first rounds of treatment. She sent him away, as was her way of coping with anything and everything that happened to her, alone, and he went, wondering how is it possible that half a heart weights more than a whole. 

How to tell her?

How to explain to her what happened in that clinic? Have they created hybrids using her ova? Is there a child somewhere with her red hair, beautiful blue eyes and a quizzical brow? Of course a question like that would come up the moment he told her. Would she abandon treatment and set out on a quest to find the child and kill herself in the process?  
What would he do with the ova if she died without ever knowing about them? Should he tell anyone else? Her mother perhaps? And what his cover story for the clinic would be? He couldn't bring himself to concoct a story about a dying wife, even imaginary one.

One thing was certain, she should know. He can't keep something like this from her forever. She would hate him if he did and the thought made him feel like a thief for a moment, not any better than the men who did this to her in the first place. Still, if the ova aren't viable, he couldn't bare to add to her pain at the moment. He should have them examined by a professional, and that fell in line with what he had planed. He had to know first. Then he will tell her and maybe that hope will lend her strength to keep fighting. 

For now he had to keep them safe and away from greedy hands of the Syndicate.  
He picked up the phone, dialed without looking and waited for answer.  
"Have you found anything?"  
"We have a place, it looks clean and legit." Frohike answered his tone grave and serious.  
"Set up a meeting for me"

It's not too late. There will be a time when she will need this.


End file.
